Andy Bond has revived the supermarket chain by going back to basics: selling bulk food in big stores at low prices. So will his Wal-Mart bosses now give him the money to do some deals?

MEET Andy Bond, boss of Asda. Lean, angular, knobbly - he looks every inch a fitness freak. Yeah, says Bond, normally it's a run every day, but last weekend it was just a 115-mile cycling race round the Yorkshire countryside.

"Four thousand metres of ascent, 33C temperature, some seriously fit guys. I did it with my No 2, Dave Cheesewright, and the strategy director . . ."

Here come the hard men from Leeds. Asda, for so long outstripped by Tesco and Sainsbury, is back on course in the war for supermarket supremacy, and its executives seem to be taking "lean and mean" to heart.

Do you have to be super-fit to get on? Nah, says Bond, in a blunt East Midlands accent. Yes, says his body language. He's perched tautly on the edge of a sofa in his Leeds office, looking as if he might leap to the floor at any minute for